English 320 - Lit as Translation

Fall
2016
01
4.00
Catherine Ciepiela
MW 02:00PM-03:20PM
Amherst College
ENGL-320-01-1617F
WEBS 219
caciepiela@amherst.edu
EUST-303-01,ENGL-320-01

(Offered as EUST 303 and ENGL 320) Acts of translation underwrite many kinds of cultural production, often invisibly. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance, for instance, engaged with black internationalism through bilingualism and translation, as Brent Edwards has reminded us. In this course we will study literary translation as a creative practice involved in the making of subjects and cultures. We will read key statements about translation by theorists and translators, such as Walter Benjamin, Roman Jakobson, Lawrence Venuti, Peter Cole and Gayatri Spivak. We also will directly engage in translation work: each student will regularly present translations in a workshop format to produce a portfolio as a final project. The class will be “polyglot,” meaning that students are welcome to translate from any language of which they have knowledge; when they share translations, they will be asked also to provide interlinear, or “literal,” translations for those who may not understand the language they are working in.


Requisite: two years of college-level study of the chosen language.  Limited to 15 students.  Fall semester.  Professor Ciepiela.

Permission is required for interchange registration during the add/drop period only.